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Migration and access to health care in English medical law: a rhetorical critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

John Harrington
John Harrington*
Affiliation:
Professor of Law, The Liverpool Law School, University of Liverpool1
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Abstract

This paper develops a rhetorical critique of recent cases on migration and access to health care in Britain. It argues that the national territory, once a taken-for-granted starting point for reasoning in medical law, has lost its common-sense status as a result of neoliberal globalisation. This is evident in recent decisions involving on the one hand HIV-positive asylum seekers coming to the UK and on the other hand British ‘health tourists’ seeking funding for treatment elsewhere in the European Union. Courts are aware that many of these cases are likely to call forth the sympathy of audiences for the individual concerned, further undermining their privileging of the national scale. In curbing this ‘politics of pity’ they adopt a range of persuasive strategies.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 315 - 335
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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